“Whenever white people describe my album they always say it’s “juxtaposed” with something else. I don’t know what that means!”
Kanye jokingly said the above quote to his engineer during a Behind the Scenes documentary for Late Registration, but I really thought about that exchange when listening to Yeezus for this run. Because the first thought when reviewing the album would be to describe everything as such: Industrial songs about sex that break for a children’s choir; references to slavery and clubs going hand in hand; breaking a minimalist synth beat for a sample from progressive rock; ending your latest album with a song that sounds like one from your first album, and a perverted version at that. All these things and more seem to demand the word juxtaposition, but the more I listen to Yeezus the less everything sounds like intentional, and the more its switches seem almost obvious. It is of a whole person.
That person in question is Yeezus, the monster that Kanye West has brought to this album. He says the words “a monster about to come alive again” during the first song, if more indication was needed of that. But it’s also an album about a God. A slave. A drunken mess. A sex deity who needs a nightlight. Kanye West had already described himself as the “21st Century Schizoid Man” on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and he makes that even more obvious during this album’s ten song running time.
Even for a man who had made 808s and Heartbreak, this album was quite the stylistic departure. Inspired by a lamp (trust me, that does make sense), Kanye decided to spare down the project he was working on within the three weeks before the album was scheduled to be released, with Rick Rubin helping on what he called “reduction” instead of production. The project in turn was much more abrasive that anything that came before it, with Kanye turning to influences from industrial music – at one point someone shouts out “Starfuckers”, to give you one hint of his inspirations – and specifically the industrial hip hop scene. Kanye is the ultimate backpacker, and for this album it seems he was listening to a lot of what I was doing as well at the time: Dalek; El-P; Saul Williams and Death Grips are all good reference points for the feel he was going for on Yeezus. Yet after those first impressions, what strikes me most about the production is the ultimate Yeezyness of it all. It will have the racial abrasiveness of Niggy Tardust, but within a second it will move to an R&B song based around a sample from the deepest cuts of Hungarian rock, or use use a Nina Simone sample combined with a trumpet drop for what is essentially a club banger.
With My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy I described it as a cyclone taking everything in its path, but for Kanye West and for Yeezus that is a category five hurricane. But this time that’s not just true for the music, but for subjects. Anthems on black culture are interlocked with discussions on clothes, which in turn move to descriptions of drugs and sex, which in turn move back to descriptions of black culture. It’s offensive in both terms, attacking every subject with no ultimate intent and also spouting lines and combining ideas in a way that could be described with that awfully vague word, problematic. Whereas the last album hid that ugliness behind lush and beautiful instrumentation, here it is presented with a front cover said to signify the “open casket funeral” of the physical album. When critics reviewed this album initially they discussed the more overt politics of the record, but with discussions of slavery being predominately comparisons to fashion and the club, those things have their own share of problems.
Here’s some things we know about the creation of Yeezus, and this is where I move perilously close into tabloid gossip, but as Kanye West absorbs every culture point around him, this is not without base. Kanye released the album mid July. Four days before the record release, his child was born. That child was from a relationship with his now wife Kim Kardashian, who was technically still married at the time. If you want some indication of why there are so many OJ Simpson references on this record, and why racially charged polemics are intertwined with sex anthems and end with a song about relationships called “Bound 2”, there is your best hint. Add that to the strange world of Kanye West, including a fashion line controversy where he sold a white t-shirt for hundreds of dollars, and you have a better idea of the creator’s mindset, just as the death of his mum and the splitting with his fiancé makes 808’s and Heartbreak’s intent more apparent (though we don’t need to know these things to enjoy the record). Kanye looked like he was on the edge of settling down – wife and kids, just what he said he wanted at the end of his last album – but it turned out he wasn’t going to do so without a fight.
That fight consists of lyrics which I have a love/hate relationship with more than any album in the Yeezy catalogue. Now, as I have already established in this series Kanye has had his fair share of clunkers, and in Yeezus we have probably his single greatest collection. They are insulting, cringeworthy, abrasive. But anymore so than the music on the record? In that respect they are Joycean (I’m not the only one whose had that thought), fitting situational circumstance and merging tense, pronoun and homophone in a way that attacks the perceptions of reality and enters us in a more stream-of-consciousness state. But this is not a completely original concept though; Death Grips in particular have a fractured lyrical structure which applies perfectly to the messy abrasiveness of their music (which, like Yeezus, presents the cliches of hip hop to their most monstrous conclusion). The difference between the two is that the latter lacks the corny moments that just come with the Kanye id. Also they don’t rhyme words with themselves five fucking times! The result is lyrics which range from really good, to terrible, to so terrible they move around to being straight up awesome again. I’ll be highlighting that last category as we go along.
Our adjusted into the vision of Yeezus begins with appropriately named “On Sight”, which like “Say You Will” for 808s and Heartbreak wastes no time throwing us into the deep end. With a Daft Punk assisted production – which sounds, in my penultimate promised reference to Death Grips, similar to the opening song of No Love Deep Web – the album rumbles into position with thunderous synth buzzsaw compressed to the point of lacking comprehension. Its an assault on the senses – Lou Reed’s review compared this to a dare, a fart, which I think is the best description – which is almost as much of an assault as the “we’ll get this bitch shaking like Parkinsons” line that comes within the fist few lines. The monster may have come alive, but the most monstrous moment of the song is when it drops everything, leaving us with only a children’s gospel choir. That choir singing “He’ll give us what we need/it may not be what we want” combined with the line “she’s got more niggas off than Cochran” (the other lawyer for OJ Simpson) makes that theory of Kanye’s paternal struggle much more apparent.
Kanye becomes more forwardly abrasive for “Black Skinhead”, whose forever presence in adverts hasn’t stopped its tribal-like impact (also I will forever associate it with the first trailer to The Wolf Of Wall Street). Daft Punk return on production for a beat that has lots of similarities with Marilyn Manson’s “The Beautiful People”, with the industrial drums and their staccato rhythms combined with ominous feedback sounds. If the name wasn’t clear enough this is the most obviously racial track on the record, with a deep voice rhythmically saying “black” and lines about the colonialist angle of King Kong and the oppressive imagoes black culture throughout the years. But it still filters all that into both a self empowerment anthem (beyond the black empowerment that was prevalent on Watch the Throne) and int clothes, with him using Malcolm X quotes to describes his black jeans (though he did do that on “Good Morning”). It also has one of the single most argued about lyrics in recent memory: Does Kanye not understand that 300 was about the Greeks? Does he do so and the 300 is Roman numerals for CCC (Cool Calm and Collected)? Is that complete bullshit considering the tone of the song it is in.
With his screams of God at the end in “Black Skinhead”, that makes the obvious transition to the third track “I Am A God”. The samples from Carleton’s “Forward Inna Dem Clothes” – those clothes references just keep appearing – introduces the song with a Jamaican Dancehall feel (not the first time that style would placed into such strangeness) before the synth beats on both the bass and treble just tear through the song like lasers, like the work of early El-P. This is the kind of song that seems designed to piss off everyone, and this is the first song on the album that is, without a shadow of a doubt, absurd. The repetition of God in so many different contexts, the list of demands, the fact that “God” is the only credited co-star on the entire setlist. Oh, and the fucking croissants! That level of ridiculous actually helps to make that final beat change, similar to the low point of “Hold My Liquor”, much more oppressive, and the “struck by lightning” shows the underlying insecurities even amidst such confidence. By the end, and the return of Justin Vernon for those final words, the ethereal, strange, spiritual and arrogant all merge together in an off-putting, but still fully realised, manner. Still, I doubt Jesus gives a shit about your millions Kanye. I think he had some passages about that.
With that he moves from being God to being a slave. The first song that Kanye premiered to the world from Yeezus, “New Slaves” is also the song that is most about Kanye venting out his frustrations on the fashion industry, accumulating their oppressiveness into a culture that encourages spending and dictates what people – particularly in the black community – pay for. It also has the first mentions of the “Blood on the Leaves”, both a reference to slavery and money. But before it looks like a song that claims to be better than everyone else, as the “I’d rather be a dick than a swallower” line and that final verse about having sex with another’s spouse seems to say, there is also the “you know that niggas can’t read” line which is such a stereotyping line that it also puts him in the position of the oppressed, and makes that last verse a really desperate act of sexual aggression (appropriate for what is coming). This is all put together with a really sparse, almost horror movie like, synth line that moves into orchestral samples. Then, will thunderous drums, comes a sample from Hungarian rock band Omega, that becomes a track a la My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The “get too high” lines from Frank Ocean also put that into perspective, for as well as being a perversely small guest spot like those on that album, it also references “Dark Fantasy”, and the idea that Kanye may never get bigger than that magnum opus, but its worth giving it for.
The comparisons to the previous album more obvious with the inclusion of Justin Vernon as one of the prominent hooks on “Hold My Liquor”. Him and Chief Keef become like two sides of Kanye’s personality batting each other, with Justin controlling what he can and Chief Keef letting his emotions pour out (albeit in that distanced autotuned fashion). It’s an ultimately crushing song, with Kanye at one his most obviously pathetic and aggressive to no avail. The Dalek like (band, not the Doctor Who villain) synth sounds are like his processed cries, as in a drunken state he attempts to reconnect with an old girlfriend and thinks that having sex with her means that he “owns” her. Not only does this relate back to ideas of ownership and slavery from the previous song, but it also explains why the autotune has returned to the album; even after five years, he still wants to get back together with the fiance that so broke his heart on 808s and Heartbreak. God, this is depressing…
…and now it’s fucking ridiculous. “I’m in It” really has no questions about how much of a joke its lyrics are, and its absurdity is matched with a beat that is constantly changing beats and tempos in such a way as to never leave the listener at rest. As well as the siren like rhythms, and the moaning constantly throughout the track, there is also the contribution from Assassin in the Jamaican Dancehall hook, which like in the other most ridiculous track, “I Am A God”, lets us be aware of the exuberance. I don’t know how many of the lyrics I can list here before I belabour a point, but the combination twice of the civil rights movement in two instances (“You’re titties let em out, free at last/thank God Almighty, they free at last”, “put my fist in her like a civil rights sign”) is genuine shock humour that I wasn’t prepared for. But there are also elements of both the pathetic nature of the last track and the themes of the album: comparing the woman to a textile; the combination of sex and black empowerment; the nightlight line and Justin Vernon presence on this song making it feel like a continuation of the struggles from the last two songs. But, still, “I’ll be speaking Swaghili”? You know what Kanye, after this song, I believe you.
I particularly believe him for “Blood on the Leaves”, which is not only one of the best tracks on the album for the beat alone, but maybe even more so than “Runaway” is the most Kanye Song to ever Kanye. It uses the Billie Holiday/Nina Simone sample “Strange Fruits” to make comparisons to hanging slaves as a metaphor for his oppressed feelings not just in fame and corporations (as it was before), but in marriage, similar to the spousal abuse allegory in “All of the Lights” (the silence on the line “unholy matrimony” pretty much gives it away). Is that completely offensive? Well, yes, but no more so than anything that occurred in the last song. The autotuned singing returns to an 808’s and Heartbreak like state, but this is the summer song to the winter of that record. I could go on about the amount of Kanyisms in this song, or speculate who exactly is the other part of the “we could have been somebody”, but its worth nothing that, despite the club banger structure of this song, this might be the most locked in and oppressive song on the entire record. But it does this by going big, with maybe one of the greatest “drops” as the trumpets and orchestral blow over the thudding drum beats and synth lines.
After all the issues prevalent in the bulk of the post-“God” songs, “Guilt Trip” is the attempt to find some of resolution in the events that have previously occurred. Unlike the Jamaican voices in the rest of the album, the Popcaan sample is a demonstrations of some kind of clarity attempting to get through, as well as the brighter and poppier synth lines that make up the bulk of the song (this was originally meant to be a beat for Watch the Throne). The references to the cold and the autotune are a more obvious throwback to 808s and Heartbreak, and with both the acceptance of his faults in the title, and “if you loved you so much why did you let me go” Kid Cudi hook, showing him make as much peace with that period of his life than we might ever see. Again, though, the corny lyrics take away some of the pathos this could have had, but otherwise the strings help to bring this period, and these feelings, to a conclusion.
But if that was the end of a relationship, then “Send it Up” is the party in celebration of or to recover from it. The air horn beat is almost parodic of club songs, and that with the static beats make the final Death Grips like song on Yeezus (though they would do this musical idea more overtly on Jenny Death’s “Pss Pss”, this year). The lyrics seem to match the parody of this style, with the word club being rhymed with FIVE times in increasingly strained way. It’s probably the worst song on the album for this respect, but its made for with that final Jamaican Dancehall sample with Beenie Man’s “Memories”, which actually suggests that although he wants closure, the incidents that so tortured him won’t really leave his head.
This culminates with the final track on Yeezus, one that shows the Kanye West that we began with and the one that has resulted in his musical journey. “Bound 2” uses the classic pitched up soul samples people expected Kanye to continue with since his College Dropout days, but so as to deliberately pervert that idea he throws in the odd, off kilter “uh huh honey” that completely breaks the normal rhythm. In many it fits the tone of the song, the unsure commitment to a new love and settling down with one person. The feeling of almost complete romanticism comes from Charlie Wilson, who lends this feeling of universal love to a song about picking someone from the club to have sex with. These, though, are also the seemingly worst lyrics on the whole album; ending your album with lines about a character from a sitcom doesn’t feel like the most satisfying conclusion. Still maybe that is the last abrasive act; giving us the least romantic feeling to a “romance” song possible.
As a result of the “complex” relationship I have with the lyrics to this album, I can’t in good conscious call this the best Kanye West album. But its the one I love talking about the most; the strange stream-of-conscious delivery of this tale (if it can be called so) is the logical progression of everything that has come before, and I love just how raw and visceral the music can be at points to complement that mindset. Who knows what musical style he will pick to best articulate him next, and with the circus around Kanye West since the birth of his children and the “running for President” comments, who knows what that album will be about? All I know is, whether for good or for ill, we’ll still be talking about it.
What did you think, though?
Kanye West Album Rankings
- My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
- Late Registration
- Yeezus
- 808s and Heartbreak
- Graduation
- College Dropout
- Watch the Throne
This is the last Record Club post of the year. Merry Yeezmus everybody!